Rather, I would say we have different opinions on what a strong farm system is.

For me, a strong farm system is one that has quality/desired prospects at the higher levels – meaning AAA and AA – who are producing, and, having them spread across both pitchers and position players.

Anyone below AA, to me, again, IMHO, is always more suspect than prospect because they’re light years away from playing at a major league level. And, I don’t believe – again, just IMHO – that having a bunch of RHP as prospects makes you have a strong farm system…because there’s so many things that can go wrong with pitchers.

Anyone below AA, to me, again, IMHO, is always more suspect than prospect because they’re light years away from playing at a major league level.

If so, then why have you bemoaned the loss of Arodys Vizcaino this year, who had only completed short-season low-A ball at the time the Yankees traded him. Given your opinion of players below AA being “more suspect than prospect” should give you comfort that the Yankees lost nothing in trading him, as you have suggested several times this year.

@ Steve Lombardi:
Your classification of what constitutes a good farm system is not altogether wrong. But that still doesn’t mean that the Yankees don’t have a top-10 farm system, even within your definition. The Yankees system may be unbalanced in that there are more pitchers than positional players of note but it nevertheless doesn’t mean that the other nine teams ranked ahead of the Yankees don’t also have similar distribution issues among the pitchers and positional players. Some teams may have more of one thing than another and it all balances out.

If so, then why have you bemoaned the loss of Arodys Vizcaino this year, who had only completed short-season low-A ball at the time the Yankees traded him. Given your opinion of players below AA being “more suspect than prospect” should give you comfort that the Yankees lost nothing in trading him, as you have suggested several times this year.

Did you read what I wrote at the time of the trade? Here it is:

Arodys Vizcaino is one of the Yankees best pitching prospects. But, is he the next Pedro Martinez or the next Octavio Dotel? We don’t know because he’s yet to pitch above the short-season Penn League. Basically, we have years before we know what Arodys Vizcaino is all about, etc.

@ Steve Lombardi:
Yes, you wrote that at the time. And you were correct to do so. But, since then, in your complaints about the Vazquez trade, you’ve talked about the costs associated with bringing Javy back and have cited the loss of Vizcaino as part of it.

You called Arodys Vizcaino “a prized pitching prospect” and made an implicit argument that the “package that they gave up to acquire” Vazquez was somehow unduly burdensome, especially in light of the return the Yanks have received.

Steve, with all due respect, I dispute the notion that I’m putting words in your mouth.

@ Steve Lombardi:
What if Javy comes up big in the postseason? (Big what if I know) Would that validate his 2010 usefulness overall? Were some maybe expecting more of him than was reasonable? (Not you, just asking)

@ Steve Lombardi:
Steve, on August 12th, you called Vizcaino a “prized pitching prospect” but have also said that no one below AA is as much prospect as suspect. Which one is it? You can’t argue that the Yanks don’t have a top-10 system and call Vizcaino a prized prospect in two different arguments.

If you meant to say something else, that’s fine. But I took your comments and read them at face value: that the Yanks gave up too much to get Vazquez because part of the package included a prized pitching prospect.

Steve Lombardi wrote:
Doesn’t matter if the Yanks gave up a bag of flaming dog poop for Vazquez. Even that would have been too much, considering how he turned out this year.
Reverting back to the argument of August 12th, this is simply not true. Melky Cabrera has been atrocious, Vizcaino is years away from the big leagues and Mike Dunn is a fungible relief pitcher.
Vazquez was acquired for nothing but money and costs the team nothing after the 2010 season. I hardly see how the Yankees gave up too much.

Not to mention that Boone Logan also came over in that deal, and he’s been a vital part of the pen for the last 3 months. Without Logan, the Yanks would be down to oh, lemme see…carry the 6, divide by the square root of pi…as near as I can figure it, they’d be down to exactly 0 lefties in the pen.